God

Who God is, what He wills, and how His will meets a world that refuses it.

17 questions answered. About this doctrine · All topics

Whosoever WillDoes John 17:12 ("the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled") prove God determined Judas's unbelief and damnation?No. John 17:12 says two things: Judas was lost, and his loss fulfilled Scripture. It does not say God caused his unbelief, prevented his repentance, or decreed his damnation to make Calvary possible. "That the scripture might be fulfilled" tells us the betrayal was foretold, not that God manufactured the betrayer. Scripture foretelling the judgment of a wicked man is not Scripture saying God made the man wicked so he could be judged. The verse states the outcome and that it was prophesied; the cause of the unbelief is supplied by the rest of John, and John grounds it in Judas's own unbelief, greed, and the entrance of Satan, not in a divine decree.
With Chuck SmithDoes prayer change God's mind?Chuck Smith, Living Water, chapter 7: It is important to realize that the purpose of prayer is not to change the mind of God or to convince God to see things our way. Many people mistakenly think that their prayers will change the mind of God. But that's not the purpose of prayer at all. You wouldn't want to change the mind of God. God said, "I know My thoughts toward you. They are good, not evil. I desire to bring you to a blessed, glorious, desirable end" (see Jeremiah 29:11). God's plan for you is much better than anything you could devise for yourself, so for you to think that you can improve upon the plan of God is sheer folly. Prayer is not designed to change the mind of God. You may ask, "If prayer isn't to change the mind of God, then why should we pray? What is the purpose of prayer?" The purpose of prayer is to open your heart to allow God to do the things He wants to do, the things that He knows are best for you. Scripture, King James Version: Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.". From Chuck Smith's books, used by permission of The Word For Today.
Whosoever WillHow do you explain the Trinity? Is the Trinity biblical?One God who exists eternally as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The word is not in the Bible, but every part of the doctrine is: one God, and three who are each fully God.
Whosoever WillHow does God know in advance who will believe? Is that middle knowledge?Scripture states foreknowledge and never explains its mechanics. This platform does not use middle knowledge and does not invent a mechanism in either direction. God responding to man is not a problem in the Bible; it is on every other page.
Whosoever WillIf God does not repent (Numbers 23:19), why does the Bible say God repented?Whosoever Will, The Road Not Taken: They will throw the other line, and they should: “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent” (Num 23:19); “the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent” (1 Sam 15:29). Here is the thing that settles it, and it is not a Hebrew trick I invented. First Samuel 15 uses the same word three times in one chapter. “It repenteth me that I have set up Saul” (15:11). “[t]he Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent” (15:29). “[t]he LORD repented that he had made Saul king” (15:35). The same stem, three times, and the chapter is not confused. It is drawing a line. A sworn purpose is not revoked. A threat is not executed when the threatened turn. Both are true, on the same page, in the same word. That distinction is the Bible’s, not mine. Scripture, King James Version: Numbers 23:19, "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?"; 1 Samuel 15:29, "And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.".
Whosoever WillIf God knows the future, does His foreknowledge cause what happens?Whosoever Will, Knowing Isn't Writing: The oldest objection is that if the act settles what God knows, then the creature is making God’s knowledge, and God is a learner. Aquinas quotes Origen on Romans 8 answering it: “A thing will happen not because God knows it as future; but because it is future, it is on that account known by God, before it exists.” And Aquinas, who is nobody’s Provisionist, keeps the distinction. God’s knowledge is a cause of things, he says, only “in so far as His will is joined to it.” When he asks how God knows a contingent act with certainty, he does not say by having made the nature that produces it. He says the opposite: “whoever knows a contingent effect in its cause only, has merely a conjectural knowledge of it.” Certainty comes from presence: “God knows all contingent things not only as they are in their causes, but also as each one of them is actually in itself.” His picture is Boethius’s, a road seen from above: “he who sees the whole road from a height, sees at once all travelling by the way.” The road does not cause the seeing. It is what is seen. What the knowledge is of, and what causes the knowing, are two relations, not one.
Whosoever WillIf I say God could have used someone other than Judas or Pilate, does that make me an Open Theist?No. Saying "if Judas or Pilate had repented, God could have accomplished his purpose through someone else" is a counterfactual, a statement about what would have been true under different circumstances. It says nothing about whether God knows the future. Open Theism is the claim that God does not exhaustively know future free choices; a counterfactual is just a conditional, and Scripture is full of them, spoken by God himself. You can hold that God knows the future perfectly and still say his purpose did not hang on one particular person's choice.
With Chuck SmithIs God the author of sin? Does God want people to sin?Chuck Smith drew the line James draws: God tests, but "God doesn't tempt us or solicit us to evil." The text is flat: "God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man" (James 1:13). Read Chuck on James 1:13 in the reader. Chuck Smith commentary used by permission of The Word For Today.
With Chuck SmithIs the word Trinity in the Bible?Chuck Smith, Charisma vs. Charismania, chapter 2: Because this is one of the areas that the enemy constantly attacks, we must affirm not only the fact of the deity of the Holy Spirit, but also why we believe in His deity. The word trinity is not found in the Bible, but it is a convenient term that theologians use to describe the three Persons of the one God. Perhaps the term triunity would more accurately describe God. He is not 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, but 1 x 1 x 1 = 1. From Chuck Smith's books, used by permission of The Word For Today.
Whosoever WillWhat does "I AM THAT I AM" mean in Exodus 3:14?Whosoever Will, The Name He Gave a Fugitive: The Hebrew is ehyeh, the first-person form of the verb hayah, to be. And here is the thing worth slowing down for: Biblical Hebrew does not have tenses the way English does. It has aspect, completed or incomplete, which means ehyeh legitimately carries “I am,” “I will be,” and “I go on being,” all at once. That is why your translations disagree. Some say “I AM THAT I AM.” Some say “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE.” Both are honest attempts at a verb that refuses to sit still in time. The name is tied directly to the four letters behind the word LORD in your Old Testament, YHWH, the name so holy that Jewish scribes would not pronounce it. Ehyeh, “I am,” is a wordplay on Yahweh, “He is.” When God speaks His own name it is first-person, I AM. When you speak it, it becomes third-person, He is. Either way it says the same thing: this One simply is, underived, uncaused, dependent on nothing, the only being in the universe who exists by nature of what He is rather than because something else made Him. Scripture, King James Version: Exodus 3:14, "And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.".
Whosoever WillWhat does "ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good" mean (Genesis 50:20)?Whosoever Will, The Pit, the Prison, and the Palace: The Hebrew verb is chashav: to think, to plan, to reckon, to intend. It appears twice in one sentence. The brothers chashav: they planned evil. God chashav: He planned good. Same verb. Same event. Two actors. Two intentions. Operating simultaneously through the same history. Joseph does not say: God made you do it. That would remove the brothers' guilt and the text has been honest about their guilt since chapter 37. He does not say: God had nothing to do with it. That would remove the providence and the text has been tracking God's presence through every stage of the story since chapter 39. Both are true. The evil was theirs. The purpose was God's. The outcome was salvation for many. Joseph had said it even earlier, both verbs in one verse: ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you (Genesis 45:5). The selling was theirs. The sending was God's. Same event, twice intended. Scripture, King James Version: Genesis 45:5, "Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life."; Genesis 50:20, "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.".
Whosoever WillWhat does God mean in Job 38:4, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?"Whosoever Will, The Rock Nobody Can Make: At the end of Job, after thirty-seven chapters of men who were certain they had God figured out, God finally speaks. The first thing out of His mouth is not an explanation. It is a question. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof? (Job 38:4–6). Read that with a piece of granite in your hand. God is not bullying Job. He is doing something far more interesting. He is pointing at the floor and asking a question Job cannot answer, and here is what should stop you: four thousand years later, with electron microscopes and mass spectrometers and every furnace we can build, we still cannot answer it either. We cannot make the rock. We have never watched it form. We cannot fully account for what is sitting inside it. God asked a man where he was when the foundations were laid, and the human race has been standing on those foundations ever since, still unable to say. That is not a gap God is hiding in. It is a fact about scale. The question was never meant to be answered by us. It was meant to locate us. Scripture, King James Version: Job 38:4-6, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;".
Whosoever WillWhat does Matthew 11:21 mean, "they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes"?Whosoever Will, The Road Not Taken: The same shape shows up in the mouth of Christ, in Greek this time, the contrary-to-fact conditional: if it had been, it would have been. Matthew 11. The cities where He had done most of His works did not repent. And He says: “if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (11:21). Sodom, He says, “would have remained until this day” (11:23). The Gospel names the hinge itself: this was after “the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done” repented not (11:20). A repentance that would have come to another city, named against the one that refused. Scripture, King James Version: Matthew 11:20-23, "Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day."; Luke 19:42, "Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.".
Whosoever WillWhat does Revelation 4:11 mean, "for thy pleasure they are and were created"?Whosoever Will, The Crown That Can Be Withheld: Revelation 4:11 grounds the whole of creation in the will of God: for thy pleasure they are and were created. The word under “pleasure” is thelēma, His will. The verse is saying that creation exists because God originated it freely and on purpose. Nothing forced His hand. He had no deficiency to fill, no need that creation completed, no gap in Himself that the world was made to close. He willed it, and so it was. On that much the Provisionist and the Calvinist shake hands. Creation is the free act of a God who needed nothing. Scripture, King James Version: Revelation 4:11, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.".
Whosoever WillWhy did God ask Adam "Where art thou?" if He already knew where he was?Whosoever Will, The One Story: Adam and Eve have just wrecked everything. They are hiding in the trees. And God walks into the garden in the cool of the day and calls out: Where art thou? (Genesis 3:9). He knows where they are. The question is not for His information. It is the first move of a God who comes looking, and it is the opening of Thread 1, the Reaching God. From that question in the garden, this thread runs unbroken to the last page. It is God searching for Adam, God swearing at Sinai that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, God's heart turning over within Him in Hosea, Jesus weeping over a city that would not have Him, and finally the very last invitation in Scripture: Come. The God who asked where are you in the garden is the God who says come in the new creation, and He has not stopped reaching for one second in between. Once you can see Thread 1, you cannot unsee it. Every rescue, every prophet sent, every parable of a shepherd going after one sheep is the same God doing the same thing He did in the garden. He reaches first. He always has. Scripture, King James Version: Genesis 3:9, "And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?".
Whosoever WillWhy did God humble Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4)?Whosoever Will, The God Who Answers: “those that walk in pride he is able to abase.” (Daniel 4:37) That is Nebuchadnezzar, the clearest case in all Scripture of God bringing a pagan king low. And the cause sits one verse before the humbling, in the king's own mouth: “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built by the might of my power?” (Daniel 4:30) He boasted, and while the word was still in his mouth, God brought him down. And watch how it finishes, because this is what ends the argument. “mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High... and excellent majesty was added unto me.” (Daniel 4:34-36) God humbled him, and then restored him, and added to him. That is not reprobation. Reprobation ends in nothing. This ends in a man restored and praising God. Scripture, King James Version: Daniel 4:37, "Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase."; Daniel 4:30, "The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?"; Daniel 4:34-36, "And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? At the same time my reason returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honour and brightness returned unto me; and my counsellors and my lords sought unto me; and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me.".
Whosoever WillWhy did God test Abraham if He already knew his heart?Whosoever Will, The Gift Was Certainty: We tend to think God tests us so that He can find out what is in our hearts. It is a natural assumption, and it is wrong. God is omniscient. He already knew the depth of Abraham's faith before Abraham ever loaded the wood or sharpened the knife. The test on Moriah did not tell God anything He did not already possess. So read the purpose again. The test was never for His information. It was for Abraham's. That single correction changes the whole account. Before Moriah, Abraham's faith was real, but it was untested, and an untested faith is still in some measure a theory to the one who holds it. A man can believe he would lay down everything for God and never once have been asked to prove it. He carries the belief like a coin he has never spent, certain of its value because he has never had to hand it over. Moriah was the spending of the coin. Abraham raised the knife over the son of promise, and in that moment the theory became experience. He came down the mountain knowing, with no daylight left between what he professed and what he was. Scripture, King James Version: Genesis 22:1, "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.".